I worked with a swim coach back in my 30s when I used to compete in triathlons. During our first lesson, he told me that we would focus on one or two things, and only when I’d mastered those changes would we move on to the next area of focus. He said focusing on more than one or two techniques at a time wouldn’t lead to progress. What’s true of swimming drills is also true in life: Our brains can’t handle tackling more than two changes at a time. Scientifically, this is known as the “Resilience Rule of 2.” In her book, The 5 Resets, which teaches people how to better deal with stress, Harvard ..read more

Sometimes, mapmakers make small, intentional errors in their maps to thwart their competitors from copying them. These “copyright traps” allow mapmakers to sue for copyright infringement if the intentional error shows up on a competitor’s map — it’s like a watermark that only the mapmaker knows about. These errors usually take the form of “phantom settlements” or “paper towns,” which are small towns that don’t exist. This IFOD is the story of a phantom settlement that came to life. Before GPS, People Used Maps Before we had GPS in our cars and our smartphones, people used physical, printed map ..read more

I was traveling this week and visited my hotel’s gym yesterday morning. There was one other guy at the gym, and he was a total beast. Big, bearded, and super muscular, he was throwing around 50-pound dumbbells (the heaviest in the gym) like they were nothing. I thought he was a total stud, but I wondered if females would find him attractive. Not being a female myself (and even if I were, I’d be a sample size of one), I have to turn to research to answer this question and fortunately, there’s a research paper right on point. In Why Is Muscularity Sexy? Tests of the Fitness Indicator Hypothesis ..read more

Work as a Disutility Classical economics views work as a “disutility”—a negative that requires money to entice you to undertake. In this view, work is the opposite of leisure (the more you work, the less leisure time you have), and what people really want is more leisure time. Based on this theory, work is something we endure merely to have money to satisfy our needs and fund our leisure. This view is obviously flawed. As Yale economist Robert Lane puts it, viewing work as a disutility is a “basic market error.” We don’t just work because we get paid. Sure, compensation is a component of why w ..read more

Having an abundance of free time sounds great, especially if you feel like you are constantly short on time. But it turns out that we dread idleness. Having too much discretionary time is associated with a lower sense of well-being. In fact, as I have previously written, many of us would choose to deliver ourselves electric shocks rather than being bored. Interestingly, even though we desire busyness, we want a justification for being busy. We tend not to choose busyness just for the sake of being busy. A fascinating study conducted on college students confirmed this conclusion. The Justifiabl ..read more

A friend recently recommended a book by an author whose previous book I had read. She asked me, “What was that (prior) book about?” My response: “Uh. . . umm . . . I can’t remember.” I had drawn a total blank — I couldn’t recall the main characters or even the plot. The only thing I could remember was a vague recollection that I had liked it. I bet this happens to you, too — you don’t remember the details of many of the books you read, movies you watch, or most other experiences. And then there are all the mundane things like your morning commute, what you had for lunch two weeks ago, and deta ..read more

Once (almost) every four years, February has a 29th day. Today’s IFOD is about why the calendar needs this extra day, as well as a few other little-known interesting facts about Leap Day. 1. Why Leap Days are Necessary To get the obvious fact out of the way, leap days are needed to keep the calendar and seasons aligned because it takes longer than 365 days for the Earth to orbit the Sun — 365.24219 days, to be precise, or a bit less than 365¼ days. (But see the end of this IFOD for a slight technical correction to the prior sentence.) That (almost) extra 1/4th of a day means that (almost) ever ..read more

We move through life in a fog of uncertainty. Most uncertainty is no big deal. Not knowing exactly how the weather will turn out today, whether your morning commute will go smoothly, or what you’ll have for dinner are minor uncertainties that don’t cause much angst. But then there are bigger uncertainties like health issues, not knowing if your student visa will be issued in time to study abroad, and waiting for test results. These more considerable uncertainties cause stress, worry, and anxiety. What stinks is that these bigger, uncertain situations usually have no easy solution. You just hav ..read more

Amazon released its Kindle ebook reader in 2007. Back then, pundits predicted that eBooks would kill off printed books because of eBooks’ lower cost, greater portability, and instant delivery for ebooks. But that hasn’t happened. Ebooks have remained at 10%-15% of all book sales for the past 15 years if you include audiobooks in the mix. Source. Why eBooks are Great Personally, I only read on my Kindle (or Kindle app on my iPhone, iPad, or Macbook); if someone gives me a printed book, I usually buy it in digital format to read. Here’s why I only read eBooks: I always have my book with me. Whe ..read more

Warren Buffett’s annual letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders are considered “must-reads” by the business and investment community. And for good reason — they are chock full of wisdom and Buffett’s worldview. But there is another set of must-read letters: Jeff Bezos’s annual letters to Amazon shareholders, which he’s penned each year since Amazon went public in 1997. One of my favorites was the 2018 annual letter in which Bezos talks about the importance of “wandering” in business. Amazon has experienced amazing growth over the last 30 years. What started as a website that just sold books ..read more